CAIRO: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has indicated that Iran is willing to restore full diplomatic relations with Egypt the “very day Cairo agrees, in comments made on Tuesday.
Quoted by the Iranian Isna news agency the president told reporters that Iran would re-open its embassy in Cairo if Egypt is willing to restore relations that have been fraught for over two decades.
“We are ready to establish diplomatic ties with Egypt. If the Egyptian government signals its willingness, we will open our embassy that very same day, the Iranian leader said.
But experts have been sceptical about statements released from Iran.
Previously, international relations expert at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies Emad Gad was uncertain about the positive future of Egyptian Iranian relations because President Ahmadinejad was the kind of person to make one statement one day, and a contradictory one the next.
“[President Ahmadinejad] is conservative, dogmatic and narrow-minded. He can reverse things with a statement. He might revert on anything that happens, Gad said.
Another news agency, Fars, quoted Ahmadinejad as saying, “The Egyptian and Iranian people are friends and our announcement about opening an embassy in Cairo shows the depth of Iran s goodwill.
Despite a history of tense relations dating back to the Islamic revolution of 1979, Egypt and Iran are also clashing on current issues, mainly Iraq and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions.
Egypt is allied with other Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan that fear for the Sunnis in Iraq from the Iranian-backed Shia government.
In January, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Iran about its nuclear program and the repercussions that might entail for the region.
“No one in the region has weapons of mass destruction but [Israel], and now Iran has started, he said in an interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot as reported by Al Ahram newspaper.
“Maybe when Iran starts you might some day be friends and work against us. I must see about defending my country and others will think the same, Mubarak added.
Historically, ties between Egypt and Iran have been strained since the 1979 revolution and late President Anwar Al-Sadat’s decision to give refuge to the overthrown Shah of Iran in Egypt. Ties between the two countries officially broke off in 1980 to protest the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel.
The then new Iranian regime was so incensed by both these incidents that they named a street in Tehran after Khaled Eslamboli, the Egyptian army officer who assassinated Al-Sadat in 1981.
In January 2004, the Tehran City Council agreed to rename Khaled Eslamboli Street and diplomatic ties were restored with Egypt. The street is now called Intifada Avenue.
